The legalization of recreational cannabis in New York is inevitable

The legalization of recreational cannabis in New York is inevitable

Medical cannabis was legalized in 2014 and since then the public, Mayor de Blasio, and even the whole Democratic Party of New York have shown huge support for legalizing recreational cannabis in New York.

Ever since Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the NYPD will overhaul its marijuana enforcement policies the support for legalizing recreational cannabis in the state of New York has been on the rise.

I'm announcing today that the NYPD will overhaul its marijuana enforcement policies in the next 30 days. We must end unnecessary arrests and end disparity in enforcement.

At this time, the laws in New York still say that smoking in public can lead to an arrest, and possession of small amounts of cannabis can lead to an invitation to the court.

As per Mayor de Blasio’s instructions, the NYPD will now give out court summons for smoking in public as well.

The legalization of marijuana in New York State is likely inevitable. Our city has to get rules in place before this happens and be prepared for the public safety, public health and financial impact. pic.twitter.com/5y40VlYhjG

Mayor de Blasio is not the only Democrat that is openly showing support for cannabis legalization, as the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance also said that by August 1st he would end prosecution of marijuana possession and smoking cases.

“The dual mission of the Manhattan DA’s office is a safer New York and a more equal justice system,” Vance said on Tuesday. “The ongoing arrest and criminal prosecution of predominantly black and brown New Yorkers for smoking marijuana serves neither of these goals.”

Lastly, the whole Democratic Party of New York has made an official announcement in which they came out in support of legalizing marijuana in the state.

New York State Sen. Todd Kaminsky said that the Democratic party is excited about making this a platform resolution, as a part of the Democrat’s Wednesday announcement.

A $3 billion dollar market

An in-depth analysis conducted by Comptroller says that the State of New York could potentially generate up to $3.1 billion USD yearly, while the city alone would be over $1 billion strong.

Here’s a comparison of New York, both city and state, and Washington and Colorado and the size of their markets:

Source: https://comptroller.nyc.gov

As you can see, the size of New York City’s market is just below what Colorado and Washington can boast with, and the whole state can easily double or triple both.

The estimated annual sales per user are also on the same level, barely above from $2000 for all three.

Now, let’s take a look at how much of that money will be going towards the taxes:

All the numbers above are in millions of USD, meaning that the total tax which could be collected from the cannabis sales and production would be around $435 million USD.

By legalizing recreational cannabis in New York tax collectors could count up to 10 times what Colorado collected in its first year after legalizing cannabis.

That is a significant amount that would remarkably increase the state budget, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves as we are still to see the legalization actually happen.